The Tour Sucks because the athletes are full of dope, and there are no stars contending for yellow, and the same guy dominates the green jersey.
Like Americans scoffing at soccer, the anti-cycling fan, who at best wants to ignore it and at worst demonizes it as phony, would probably nod his head in approval at the title of this post.
Not having stars isn't a problem. They will identify themselves in the the mountains. Just in case the Tour might have suffered for lack of a star in the first week, we have the exploits of Fabian Cancellara, as described in the post below.
These first few stages are supposed to be for the sprinters. After McEwen left everyone in his wake on stage one, you could have been excused for thinking he would slaughter the field and hold the green jersey all the way to Paris. Then a funny thing happened. In the last two stages McEwen finished outside the top 5 twice, while Boonen finished 2nd & 4th. Boonen's 1 point lead after stage 2 has grown to 6. That's not large at all, but what is significant is that after stage one, it looked like McEwen would have a 20 point lead by now.
The bad news is that it might already be a two man race for green. Boonen has 80; McEwen has 74; Zabel has 62. There are several other riders with greater than 40 points, but these guys need the two front runners to come up empty in a bunch sprint in order to get back into contention. Thor Hushovd and Oscar Freire keep slipping further away as they can't finish near the front. But hey, a two man race is better than a one man race, and quite honestly, Boonen is the only guy who has proven he can beat McEwen repeatedly, albeit 2 years ago.
As for the doping problem, I told you that all the riders signed a statement saying they are clean, so there.
Not having stars isn't a problem. They will identify themselves in the the mountains. Just in case the Tour might have suffered for lack of a star in the first week, we have the exploits of Fabian Cancellara, as described in the post below.
These first few stages are supposed to be for the sprinters. After McEwen left everyone in his wake on stage one, you could have been excused for thinking he would slaughter the field and hold the green jersey all the way to Paris. Then a funny thing happened. In the last two stages McEwen finished outside the top 5 twice, while Boonen finished 2nd & 4th. Boonen's 1 point lead after stage 2 has grown to 6. That's not large at all, but what is significant is that after stage one, it looked like McEwen would have a 20 point lead by now.
The bad news is that it might already be a two man race for green. Boonen has 80; McEwen has 74; Zabel has 62. There are several other riders with greater than 40 points, but these guys need the two front runners to come up empty in a bunch sprint in order to get back into contention. Thor Hushovd and Oscar Freire keep slipping further away as they can't finish near the front. But hey, a two man race is better than a one man race, and quite honestly, Boonen is the only guy who has proven he can beat McEwen repeatedly, albeit 2 years ago.
As for the doping problem, I told you that all the riders signed a statement saying they are clean, so there.
posted by uberschuck at 4:49 PM
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